


Under Pressure

by interstellarstorms



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Aromantic Dean Winchester, Bipolar Disorder, Bisexual Jody Mills, Canonical Character Death, Claire is Bipolar, Demisexual Sam Winchester, Depression, Eating Disorders, Episode: s13e10 Wayward Sisters, F/F, Flashbacks, Gen, Hallucifer, Hallucinations, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Lesbian Claire Novak, Medication, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Panromantic Sam Winchester, Parental Jody Mills, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Season/Series 13, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Notes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-20 21:33:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14269998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interstellarstorms/pseuds/interstellarstorms
Summary: After the death of Kaia Nieves, Jody discovers an unfinished suicide note on Claire's desk and has Claire admitted to the hospital. While there, she has an unexpected visitor in the form of Sam Winchester, who shares more in common with her than she knew.Inspired by personal experiences





	1. Claire

**Author's Note:**

> This is a pretty dark work based somewhat on my own personal experiences with being hospitalized. I've never written anything like this, so I hope it turns out okay. It's definitely triggering, so I recommend caution. 
> 
> The first chapter is entirely focused on the day that Claire gets admitted to the hospital, so there is no Sam, but the perspective alternates between Claire and Sam so he is a focal character in the next chapter and pretty much every chapter after that.

_ Hunters and hospitals don't mix. _

This was the only thought that permeated through Claire Novak's head as she sat shivering under Jody Mill's arm. No other feeling or question or even sarcastic declarations could reach her while they waited in the waiting room just outside the ER. A part of her knew that she should be fighting, pushing past out of Jody's embrace and getting the hell out of this place. She was Claire Fucking Novak, for God’s sake. She fought tougher than anyone, and she had a reputation to uphold. Sitting here, she must look to the world like a doe-eyed, delicate little girl who needed her surrogate mother for protection--a look Claire had only played once only because she had to in order to gain intel on a werewolf hunt outside Iowa City a few years back, and she’d hated every minute of it. Claire Novak could be a lot of things, but weak was not one of them.

She knew why Jody had brought her here, but none of it felt real. She’d come home from yet another bust of a hunt only to find the older woman standing at the door looking more distraught than Claire had ever seen her, and immediately, she had known what must have happened, even before Jody had said it. But still, she’d waited until Jody had said the words herself, trying to think up some comeback like she always did, but coming up with nothing.

“Claire...honey, I found your note.”

Of course, Claire had known just how to respond to this. She shouted at Jody for invading her privacy, swore profusely, and stormed off to her room. But each move was deliberate and empty. Because Claire Novak was empty. Every single thing was collapsing upon itself in her world. It had been decided for a while now, and now the last straw had been losing Kaia. Fucking Kaia. She’d given Claire hope, and then Claire had gone and gotten the other girl killed, like the careless bitch she was. And there was nothing anybody could do about it now: she was going to kill herself, and that was it. 

She’d tried the typical hunter’s way first: getting in over her head in a case, but of course every case she seemed to find now turned out to be nothing, or worse, already on Jody’s radar. She couldn’t bring herself to fight Jody the way she used to. It just wore them both out too quickly. She tried to bring back the chip that had been on her shoulder since her real father had died, but even that was too tiring. So she’d decided that a more civilian response would have to do if she couldn’t just hunt--and yet, those ways were  _ hard _ . Every time she picked up the gun, she felt that something was standing in her way, first. Claire was just done, and drinking herself to death wasn’t fast enough, although she tried that, too.

No matter how much she wanted to just end it all, something still stood in her way. That was why she started writing the note. To tie up loose ends, to apologise to Jody and Alex and Patience, to say her final goodbyes. She worked at it every night, but she still hadn’t finished, still hadn’t gotten it quite right yet. Usually, Claire remembered to fold up the handwritten pages each morning and stuff them in the back pocket of her jeans, but this morning, she must have forgotten.

The look on Jody’s face made Claire’s stomach sink. The tears in the middle-aged hunter’s eyes caused the young woman to bite her bottom lip. And all resistance left in Claire seemed to fade away into compliance as Jody continued to speak.

“Claire, I had no idea.”

“That’s because you weren’t supposed to know,” Claire spoke slowly, selecting her words with more precision than she’d even done before. “You still aren’t supposed to know. You weren’t supposed to have read it yet.”

“And I’m so glad I did! We have to do something about this you know,” Jody’s eyes were barely restraining the tears now. Claire lowered her head, ashamed.

“It’s over Jody,” she whispered.  _ I must sound like a prissy little wanna-be emo,  _ she thought halfheartedly. “I don’t know what’s left to do.”

Jody wiped at her eyes and took a deep breath before responding. “I do. Come with me. I’ll take you to the hospital. You’re one of my girls, and I need you to get better.” 

“I won’t...I can’t, Jody! It’s my choice isn’t it? My life! And all they’re gonna do is lock me up and drug me into happiness? No!” Claire exclaimed.

“That’s not what they’re going to do. It’s a lot more than that, and I think you know that. And Claire, you can’t save others unless you save yourself first. Please, come with me,” The look in Jody’s eyes was so uncharacteristic of her: Jody was a badass, but right now, she was pleading.

Claire knew that Jody hated hospitals (she didn’t trust them on account of the cases she had worked and the horror that was getting her appendix removed in a hospital of leviathans), so she had to be very broken up by what she’d read to even suggest taking her pretty-much daughter there. Claire had no mother--not anymore--and Jody had done her best to assume that role, but it’s hard to mother a broken child, and even harder when that child doesn’t want to be mothered.  _ (God, this sounds so stupid!)  _ But she knew Jody meant well, and at this point, it was taking a lot for Claire to even retain her composure at this point, so she went along. Shut her mouth for once in her damn life. 

Claire got in the passenger seat of Jody’s car silently. She stared out the window, feeling like a stupid angsty teenager in a movie, and neither of them spoke for the entire car ride. It was dark out, so there wasn’t much to see as soon as they left the Sioux Falls area but it gave Claire time to think. 

She thought about the other girls. They had gone out, Jody had said, and Claire suspected that Jody had orchestrated this specifically for Claire’s benefit, but odds are they had no idea what was transpiring. They were going the wrong way for it to be at the hospital where Alex worked, so there was still hope of maintaining this little excursion as a secret between herself and Jody. Claire thought she might die of humiliation if anybody were to know that she was being driven like a child to the hospital for something like this. She didn’t know what she’d do if anybody but Jody were to see this crack in her facade, this idiotic child that couldn’t just deal like a normal person. Like a hunter, for fuck’s sake. Maybe Kaia would get it--she’d been an addict who’d been through those cheesy self-help groups and shit--but Kaia was gone. And Claire had cried like a fucking baby. She’d fallen in love, damn it, just like hunters weren’t supposed to, and, just like it always happened with hunters, she’d gotten the one she loved killed. Fuck.

When they’d finally parked the car, Jody rushed around the car to reach for Claire’s hand as they neared the entrance. With what little dignity she could summon, Claire tried to shake the hand off, but she surrendered when Jody reached out and clasped her opposite shoulder. _ What the fuck is happening to me?  _ Claire breathed as they reached the reception desk and Jody explained the situation. 

“Alright, honey, we’re gonna put this wristband on your wrist and we’re just gonna have you take a seat for just a couple minutes, okay?” The lady at the desk spoke with a soft, kind southern lilt, but Claire still braced at the word “honey”. She was a hunter, a killer, a badass...but she’d been wrong before. She sank even further as she reached out her right arm and the lady fastened a white bracelet onto her wrist. It read:

 

Novak, Claire MRN: 000858718 Avera Health

4/29/1997 (20 yrs) F ED ARR: 2/8/18

ATT: Adrienne M. Herrera ADM DATE: 

191744082

 

Claire and Jody spent about 7 minutes filling out paperwork before Claire’s name was called. Jody lifted her arm from around Claire only for a moment to stand up before putting her arm once more around her surrogate daughter. Claire tried to pretend that her breathing wasn’t shaky and that her pulse wasn’t rising. She stepped forward in a rather awkward manner that made her cringe. Jody looked over at her and smiled supportively but Claire looked away and continued to walk towards the door at the front left corner of the room where a slight nurse was waiting with a friendly look and a clipboard. 

“Are you Claire? Oh good, I’m just going to record your height, weight, and blood pressure right here,” the nurse said. Claire complied with the instructions, and the results were deemed healthy. The nurse then lead Claire and Jody to an open room. She stuck a thermometer under Claire’s tongue and recorded the result as soon as it started to beep. “98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, you’re perfect.” 

“I’m just going to need to get a urine sample from you at some point before your doctor gets here. In a few minutes, someone will be back to draw your blood. Nothing too bad, just ordinary testing to make there’s not some biological cause in your samples to account for your symptoms. I’m also going to need you to change out of your street clothes into this gown.”

Claire thought it was odd how the nurse spoke, as if this were the flu that Claire had rather than a suicide note. She looked in disgust over at Jody, who shrugged as if she weren’t the reason they were treating her like this. She took the jar and crossed the hall to the one-person restrooms that the nurse had indicated to her. Looking at herself in the mirror, she saw how tired she looked: blonde hair astray, once-immaculate eyeliner now forming a dark shadow in the creases beneath her blue eyes. The girl in the mirror barely even  _ looked _ like Claire Novak, much less felt like her. Regardless of the reason, she was glad to have a moment alone. 

When she returned to the room, Jody was sitting in a chair beside the exam table with her head in her hands. She looked older than Claire had ever seen her look; older than she did when the girls fought, than when she ran away, than when her hunter friends literally died. Claire almost felt wrong to interrupt. So she sat on the table, quiet, empty, not even bothering to take out her phone to see if anybody had tried to contact her since she’d gotten home that evening. The pair just waited in silence.

They came to draw her blood after about half an hour. This was nothing to a hunter, but Claire remembered that there’d been a time--a time before Jody and the Winchesters and even Castiel--when Claire had been afraid of needles. She’d cry and reach for her mother’s hand each year during her checkup when it came time for her vaccinations. But Claire was twenty years old and already jaded and hardened. She gave a half-hearted attempt at snapping at the kid (probably about her age) drawing her blood when he grabbed her arm with cold hands, but when the needle pierced her skin and the little vial started to fill with a familiar dark red, Claire was barely fazed. They got it on the first try and collected her urine sample as they walked out the door.

It was another hour before the doctor actually saw her. She never caught his name, but he was tall and wore rectangular glasses. When he spoke, his voice was soft and slow and pleasant, but it startled Claire, who had adjusted to relative silence apart from the who-knows-what that was going on outside the doors of that room.

“Claire? I’m here to talk about what brought you here this evening,” he explained. “Do you want your mother to leave the room?”

Looking over at Jody, Claire saw that the older woman was sitting up straight and poised to walk out the door, but the look on her face was reluctant, wishful to stay. “I don’t really care. She can stay,”  _ As long as I don’t bring up Kaia, she knows everything. _

They didn’t bring up Kaia. Thank God. It wasn’t like Claire was closeted--and Jody had been the one who’d comforted Claire the one time she couldn’t help but cry following Kaia’s death--but she hadn’t gotten to the Kaia portion of her letter, and Jody didn’t know the exact nature of the girls’ relationship. As much as it pained Claire to say it, the reason she hadn’t told Jody was to spare her the pain. Knowing what Claire had really lost would break her, and Jody had done so much. Claire might be a bitch, but she wasn’t cruel.

“Claire, I think that the proper course of action would be for you to stay here. We have a behavioral health inpatient program that I think would be our best option in order to protect you from yourself and ensure that you start feeling better.” There it was. Was he calling her crazy?

“Jody, I don’t think that this is necessary. I won’t do anything,” Jody gave her a look. “Doctor, what kind of program is this?”

“You will be on our adult floor where we will hold group therapy sessions throughout the day. We have visiting hours from 6-7 pm every day, and from 1-2 pm on weekends. You can wear your own clothes, so long as they fit our safety standards. And you can either cooperate and admit yourself voluntarily, or we can admit you involuntarily, which means that you would have no say in your time of discharge, so I recommend the first option. We currently have a room available, so you’d be moved up right away.”

“Fine. But only because I want a say in when I get out of this place.”  _ Claire’s lost it, _ a voice sang in her head.  _ Crazy Claire’s in a locked ward now.  _

They didn’t even allow her to walk herself to the room. She was an able-bodied twenty-something, and yet here they were, pushing her in a wheelchair through the halls of the hospital into the elevator while she sat there in rubbed-off makeup and a hospital gown. They hadn’t even allowed her to keep her underwear in that thing, and the texture of the disposable underwear they had allowed her to keep felt scratchy against her skin. Coming from a hunter, she now felt barely even human in how low her dignity had been reduced. She didn’t mean to sound ableist: it was just hard losing all your autonomy.

When she arrived at the floor where she was to be kept, Claire’s sense of self-respect flew out the window. There were drawings on the barren white walls like a kindergarten classroom, and the entire floor consisted of two parallel hallways. They handed Claire a menu for the next day’s meals, timestamped after midnight, and they exchanged her bracelet for one that was identical save for the “ADM DATE: 2/8/18” that was now in the bottom corner. Finally, it came time to say goodbye to Jody, who still sat beside Claire with shadows of exhaustion under her eyes.

“Claire, I know you’re not happy about this, but you have to know that the world needs you. You have to know that we care about you,” Jody’s voice trembled only a little.

“Okay, Jody,” A part of Claire wanted to laugh, because Jody sounded just so sentimental, it was ridiculous. Or maybe, it was a little bit of hysterics, but Claire wasn’t dumb enough to admit it to even herself. Still, the sincerity in her voice made Claire hold her scoff.

“You matter, Claire. I’ll visit you tomorrow, okay?”

“Alright. Don’t you get all cheesy on me now, Jody,”

To Claire’s surprise, the older woman leaned over and wrapped Claire in her arms, leaning her head on the blonde girl’s shoulders. She didn’t let go for quite some time, until the nurse responded with a polite cough. Jody then brushed the hair away from Claire’s eyes and whispered, “I won’t tell the girls if you don’t want. And I’ll make sure that you have your own clothes by morning, okay?” Claire nodded and watched as Jody was escorted out of the ward and the door locked behind her.

Claire was stuck here, all alone in a locked ward.

She was lead to a room with two signs on the door, one of which had her name written on it in dry erase marker and the other reading “Eloise”, who had to be the elderly woman asleep in the far bed. The nurse checked her vitals one final time before informing her that breakfast would be at 8:30 in the group room where she had said goodbye to Jody and the first session would begin at 9. Claire was warned to expect someone to make rounds in the ward every 15 minutes and return to take her vitals in the morning. She nodded in acquiescence, wanting nothing more than to sleep.

After the nurse left, Claire stared at the tiles on the ceiling for only a moment before her eyes shut and she drifted off to a soft, dreamless sleep. She didn’t even hear the whispers of nurses in the halls saying her name as they discussed the rebellious looking girl and the dark-haired woman who had brought her in. 

_ Goodnight, Claire. _


	2. Sam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Winchesters receive a phone call from Jody about Claire and drive to the hospital to visit her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's one particular flashback that Sam has during this chapter that might be pretty triggering but overall this is a much safer chapter. I'm not necessarily as proud of it, but most of that is due to the fact that this is a very dialogue-heavy chapter. Expect more Sam and Claire interactions in the next chapter!

“Hey, Sammy! Jody’s on the phone!”

Sam Winchester lifted his head and looked up from his encyclopedia. He was dead tired after the events of recently. Most recently, they’d met a “faith healer” named Sister Jo, who’d of course turned out to be the angel Anael, and angels were dicks. She’d been in with Lucifer, which was the real cause for Sam’s weariness. He’d pretend that he was past what happened in Hell, but he never would be. But Dean didn’t need that kind of extra stress in his life, and Sam wasn’t about to give him it. This never went away--so why should he even bother?

Sam rose from his seat to stand behind Dean, who was holding the phone out on speaker. “Hey, Jody! What’s up, we haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“It’s not good, Sam. I don’t think I’m supposed to talk to anyone about it, but I need to talk to someone, and I made a promise that I wouldn’t tell the other girls. I thought about talking to Donna but she’s already stressed out enough and Claire’s known you two for longer,” The tone in Jody’s voice startled Sam: she sounded almost as if she was about to cry.

“Promise what, Jody?” Dean inquired, voicing Sam’s own question out loud.

“It’s Claire. She was…” Jody had to stop for a moment to breath, her breath shaking. “I found her suicide note and now she’s in the hospital, and God, I have no idea what to do now. I’m driving there right now to drop off some real clothes, she had to spend the night in one of those horrible hospital gowns!”

“What kind of clothes are you bringing her?” Sam asked, earning a very strange look from Dean.

“Dude, why do you care? You all of a sudden Mr. Fashion over here, in your ancient flannels?” Dean said, shaking his head.

“She can’t have anything with strings or they’ll take it away from her. Metal and jewelry are a no-go, even though that’s kind of Claire’s thing. And she can’t have shampoo or anything with alcohol--what?” Sam cut off abruptly.

“How do you know all this?” Jody asked.

“Let’s just say I’ve been there. Don’t worry, Jody, Claire’s tough. She’ll get through this.” Sam responded. “Where is she?”

“Avera, outside Sioux Falls. Oh, God, I wish this could have happened at any other time. Work is already going bad enough without all this. Besides, Patience is still adjusting to life in Sioux Falls.”

“You’re gonna be okay, Jody, promise,” Sam said comfortingly, but he was interrupted on the other end by a loud expletive. “Jody, you okay? Someone rear end you?”

“No--shit, why is this happening now?--I just got a text on my other cell from Donna. She’s got a lead on this vamp up in Minneapolis and she needs me to come down there now. She says it’s urgent, and that they’ve got Max Banes. The two of them have been in contact about this hunt for weeks now but they were on a call and he just cut off. Donna is already on her way down there and she needs backup.”

“Max Banes?” Sam tried to ignore the leap in his chest when he said that same. “He’s good, and hes’s got his witch powers, so if he’s in trouble, it’s bad. Jody, you have to go. We’d go instead but we’re over seven hours away and you’re probably half the distance.”

“Oh, God, I promised Claire I’d visit! But this is major,” Jody exclaimed. 

“When are visiting hours?” .

“It’s a Friday, right? They’re 6-7, but you don’t have to go out there.”

“No, we’d love to. You need to be there for Donna,” Sam insisted. “Besides, I want to talk to Claire.”

“How about Cas?” Dean asked. “Does he know? Maybe he can use his angel mojo on her,”

“Don’t think it works like that, Dean,” Sam exhaled. “He could maybe visit, though,”

“As long as Claire’s okay with it,” Jody agreed. “But I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about this in the first place so someone needs to make sure she’s alright with it.”

“I can ask her. You go on that hunt, you clearly need it.” Sam responded.

“Fine. But she might not be so glad to hear that I told you she was there. I never mentioned anything about telling the pair of you. But since you seem to have experience with this, it might be a good idea for her to talk to, you know, another hunter who has been there.” She conceded.

“Thanks, Jody. I’d better get going, it’s a six hour drive to where you are from the Bunker.”

“See ya, Jody,” Dean said, still looking perplexedly at Sam. Most likely, the only way that he hadn’t taken over that conversation was the shock that his brother...was. Sam was usually more of a supportive persona than this insistent. There’d been a time in his life when Sam felt that he could be more disagreeable, but times change, and often he felt restricted. But this, this was something that Sam had experience with, and it was something that he knew would be important to Claire in the long run. She did remind Sam a little of himself at that age, with her rebelliousness and quick mind. He could imagine very well how Claire felt.

“Bye,” Jody concluded. And not a moment later, Dean was on his younger brother about it.

“Sam, what was that? You some sort of a therapist or something? Because you aren’t exactly the poster boy for stability, are you?” 

“Dean, you haven’t been in the hospital for something like that. That time with Martin does not count, because we weren’t meant to be in there. I’ve been there for real. I know what it’s like, and she needs to know that she can get past this like I have,” Sam braced himself for his brother’s rebuttal but it never came.

“You know what? Go ahead. Be all Batman for Claire. I don’t get it, but if you really wanna spend six hours in my Baby, I’m coming with, and you owe me.”

“Really?”

“Hey, Jody’ll definitely make us dinner one night if we end up staying down there, and she is a  _ good _ cook man. She’s  _ fantastic _ !”

“Should’ve known. Be ready in ten,” Sam said, shaking his head in amusement. Dean certainly wouldn’t really understand why it meant so much to Sam, but he was a good brother and could sense that it was important. Dean knew almost everything about Sam, but this was one of the few things that he didn’t.

Sam never talked about his mental health to Dean. It just never came up, and when it did, Sam just couldn’t reconcile the detriment it would do to Dean if he knew what was going on inside Sam’s mind. Dean seemed to take everything that happened to Sam as a direct outcome of his own actions, which was just ridiculous, but there was no point in trying to convince him otherwise. Because of this, Sam had never told Dean about what it had been like stuck in the hospital with insomnia and Lucifer playing games inside Sam’s head. And Dean didn’t even know about the other time he’d been inpatient. Nobody alive that knew him knew about that. Sam now figured that Claire would be the first. 

After several hours in the Impala, listening to AC/DC’s Highway to Hell album for the umpteenth time in the passenger seat, Sam’s mind couldn’t help but wander. It had been a long time since he’d let himself think about those times he’d spent on the psych floor of a hospital, but he was finding that the memories were still ingrained into his memory as if they were yesterday. He hadn’t been that far from Claire’s age the first time he’d ended up in the hospital following a panic attack that had escalated. 

 

_ He was 18 and a second semester freshman at Stanford when Brady returned to their dorm room to find him hugging his knees in the corner of the room and weeping with his head down. Brady had been hesitant to approach his distraught roommate until he’d seen the glint of metal in the tall boy’s hand and the scarlet stain of blood.  _

_ “Sam!” Brady had shouted, and Sam had raised his head with a start. His irises looked vivid green against the redness of his eyes and they continued to leak tears as they met Brady’s.  _

_ “Brady…” Sam took his arms from around his knees and laid them out for Brady to see. They were etched with cuts of varying depths, as if they had been formed with increasing aggression as time went on. “Brady, you need to help me!” _

_ “Sam, what did you do!?” The shock registered on the shorter boy’s face as he looked down at his roommate. A sob wracked Sam’s body, making his lengthy athletic form look small as a child.  _

_ “Brady, if you don’t help me, I’ll never turn 19. I won’t make it through today. I’ll never make it past today if you don’t stop me. Help me!” Sam’s breath hitched and he ran his bloodied fingers through his hair.  _

_ “Put that down Sam! I’m getting the RA!” _

 

Sam was broken from his horrific reverie when Dean indicated out the window. They’d arrived at the hospital where Claire was with 45 minutes to spare. Sam was grateful: he was starving, as the salad he’d gotten for lunch had been limp and insufficient. 

“Hey Sam, how ‘bout we stop by the cafeteria before we go see Claire?” Evidently, Dean had felt the same way. 

“Sure. We got time to kill anyway,” Sam agreed. He felt guilty about his hunger, wishing he could just stop the hunger, wanting to stifle it, but if Dean was hungry, he could easily excuse another (hopefully more nutritious) low-calorie meal. 

“C’mon, Sammy! Let’s get goin’” Dean grinned. The men exited the car and headed inside to the hospital cafeteria. 

He could barely force himself to eat. Dean, of course, was inhaling his cheeseburger, but, although he was hungry, Sam couldn’t bring himself to even touch his black bean burger. He didn’t want to. He excused himself to use the restroom after a few minutes, before Dean could notice that he wasn’t eating anything. Dean just made a rather childish comment in response but the uneaten food escaped his notice. Sam spent a while in there, mostly just staring at his reflection, and when he returned, Dean was on the last American cheese-drenched morsels of his food.

After finishing their burgers (or, in Sam’s case, wrapping the veggie burger whole in a to-go container), they headed up to floor 5C, where Jody had indicated they would find Claire. A part of Sam was irrationally afraid, although he didn’t know what he was afraid of. Perhaps it was just the familiarity of this situation from years before. 

“Who are you here to see?” The guard asked. 

“Claire Granger,” Dean gave the alias that Jody had provided them. “We’re her uncles...we’re brothers, and her uncles. We’re not married.”

“Okay, sir. She’s never said anything against allowing you to enter, so go on in,” The guard replied, meeting Sam’s exasperated eyes. His brother was always weird about being mistaken as a couple with his brother. It had gotten better as they’d gotten older, but old habits die hard, Sam supposed. 

Claire was sitting on a bench attached to the wall in the middle of the hallway with her arms crossed. She looked barely recognizable as the spunky young woman they knew. Her hair was unbrushed, she wore none of her signature dark makeup, and her outfit of leggings and an old t-shirt with a picture of a cat printed on it looked distinctly non-Claire. It wasn’t so much that she looked bad, but she was so unfamiliar from the late Jimmy Novak’s daughter. 

“You’re not Jody,” she said, snark overshadowed by tiredness. 

“Jody had to go on a hunt. Urgent, she couldn’t avoid it,” Dean asserted as the men took a seat on either side of the girl.

“She said she’d come,” Claire’s words sounded almost defeated, but her tone was neutral. Sam was reminded once again of how much this young girl had lost: a father, a mother, a home, another father figure, and another…

“I’m sorry, Claire. That’s why we came instead. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you, though,” Sam confessed. He hated this two-visitor rule more than anything at that moment. Jody was the closest thing this girl had to a mother, and now that Sam knew what it felt like to have a mother betray your trust, even in such a small way, his heart broke for her.

“Yeah, right. I know you want me to pretty much call you Uncle Sammy or something, but teaching me to commit credit card fraud isn’t exactly the deepest bonding experience. Why are you really here?” Claire prodded, and then her eyes lit up. “Is it because there’s a hunt? Because I’m so down for that. Get me out of this hell.”

“I wasn’t lying, Claire. I wish it was just some hunt, but I wanted to see you because I’ve been in your position. Twice, actually,” Sam admitted. He could feel Dean’s suspicious gaze on the word “twice” but he ignored it. “Once when I was a few years younger than you and once only a few years ago.”

“Don’t mock me, Sam. Hunters don’t end up here. I know that,” Claire laughed bitterly.

“Actually, Claire, they do. We knew a guy named Martin who ended up in the l--in a place like this, too. Our dad knew him. Not the greatest dude we ever met, but he was worse than you,” Dean contributed.  _ At least he’s trying,  _ Sam thought. Dean really did care for Claire a lot; he had been a father at one point, to Ben Braeden, and he’d done a good job with the kid, from what little he knew. It had hurt Dean so much to lose them, and Sam wasn’t about to test Dean’s insistence that he would get violent if they were mentioned again. Still, those fatherly skills were evident in the way Dean talked to kids, and it was clear Claire looked up to him in spite of herself.

“Not necessarily helping, Dean, but thanks. Can I talk to Claire alone for a few minutes?” Sam asked. He felt uncomfortable opening up to Dean, but Claire needed that openness. Claire needed to know--or did Sam just need to talk about it? He never really had talked about it before, now that he thought about it.

“Sure. I’ll just say hello to that nice nurse over there,” Dean grinned, eyeing a pretty young woman in scrubs at the desk that separated the two hallways on the floor. 

“Okay Sam, this is kinda weird. Why did you really want to talk to me?” Claire inquired. 

Sam hesitated. He wasn’t a natural at this. Sam liked to think of himself as generally empathetic and well-spoken person (mostly from years of practice, he figured) but this was a more personal matter. They had driven all this way to tell Claire, but he was struggling to actually speak the words. 

“I wasn’t lying Claire. But Dean only knows half of it. Because one of those times, I was away at Stanford. I was even younger than you.”

“So you’re crazy, too. Good to know.” Claire rolled her eyes. He’d expected that kind of response. That was just how hunters like her were meant to act. Hunters like  _ him _ . 

“You’re not crazy. You’ve been through a lot, lost a lot of people. But you’re doing the right thing. Believe me. It helped me.” He said earnestly. 

“You’re you though,” She insisted. 

“I know there’s more to you, Claire. You’re like Dean; you talk tough but your actions give you away. You’re a good person. Let me at least try to help you.”

A silence fell between the hunters. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam could see Dean was flirting with the hot nurse he’d commented on earlier while she appeared to be sorting through a bag of patient belongings. Claire was watching the scene unfold as well. 

“Jody said she brought your stuff in this morning. What time did you actually get it?” He asked, trying to ease the discomfort of the situation. 

“During the 10:00 group,” she replied, still watching Dean. 

“Is this one of those programs with different sessions every hour?” 

“Yeah,”

“I was on this floor a few years ago where they only ran sessions for about half the day, and they kept me in my room most of the time. Of course, I wasn’t in for the same thing as you are that particular time, so that could be why.”

“That time? Were you the other time?” She asked, in spite of herself. 

“I was. I was in college and I was lucky enough to have a roommate who cared. He was very supportive, and I was able to help him through his own problems the next year as a result of this. You’ll make it to that point, someday,” he said, recalling the way Brady had stayed with him so long ago. 

 

_ In the end, Sam managed to talk his way out of being taken away in an ambulance (they were just cuts, after all, not proof that he’d actually meant to end himself) but he couldn’t talk his way out of the hospital. Brady had stayed with him for almost the entire time, while he spoke to the RA, the RD, and the police, all at Sam’s request. When it finally came time for Sam to be escorted away from the residence hall, he was taken by surprise by a pair of strong arms. _

_ “Get better, Sam. Please,” Brady whispered, and tears began to stain the shoulder of his shirt as Sam laid his head down on it. Sam was shaking with sobs, but Brady didn’t let go, which only made Sam cry harder. Nobody had ever shown him affection like this, not even Dean. It did something with Sam’s heartstrings _

_ “Brady,” Sam’s voice was muffled by Brady’s t-shirt, “I…thank you so much. I’m so sorry.” _

_ “Sam, you matter, okay? Get some help and come back, will you? It wouldn’t be the same without you.” Brady unwrapped one of his arms from Sam to grasp the taller boy’s shoulder, causing Sam to lift his head and meet Brady’s eyes. Part of Sam knew that he should be embarrassed to have another boy staring into his bloodshot eyes but all Sam felt was gratitude.  _

_ Maybe things would get better after all. _

 

Dean was coming back to them now. He grinned mischievously in a way that Sam (and probably Claire) knew meant that he had gotten her number. Sam knew his opportunity to talk with Claire had almost passed if Dean was back and a slight panic began to set it, although he masked it well.

“You know that’s probably illegal, right?” Sam said, shaking his head.

“She didn’t seem to care,” Dean shrugged.

“You’re hopeless,” Sam concluded. He looked over at the girl beside them, not even old enough to legally drink. She was smirking a little, which brightened Sam’s mood significantly. Dean’s antics were useful for something after all. “Claire, before we go, I want to make sure you know that being here doesn’t make you any less of a hunter or a person. Jody should be here tomorrow, but there’s two visiting times if you wanted us to come back. We would do it in a heartbeat.”

“That’s right. Speaking of visitors, do you want us to tell Cas you’re in here? Jody wasn’t sure whether you would want him to come,” Dean said, recalling what Jody had asked of them earlier.

In a sudden moment of brilliance, Sam grabbed a pen from the desk in the center of the room and pulled the receipt from the burgers out of his pocket. He scrawled his number down (labelled “Uncle Sam” to avoid confiscation from the nurses and interns) and handed it to her.

“If you need anything, call me,” he implored as they were unceremoniously extricated from the room. Sam could only hope that she’d heed his advice. The more he thought about Claire, the more he started to remember, and he had the feeling that his experiences were about to overwhelm him (he prayed that the Hell trauma wasn’t next). Really, there was just so much wrong with Sam, he didn’t even know where to begin at this point. 

They had parked the Impala in the back of the lot, so it took a couple minutes for them to reach it. Dean was obviously ready to find a motel nearby (he really was serious about waiting for Jody to come home and fix him a meal). Sam hopped in the passenger seat as Dean turned the key in the ignition. The familiar purr of the engine filled the car and Sam instantly realized the heaviness in his eyelids. 

As he rested in the car, his mind began to wander. 

 

_ Sam thought about Brady a lot when he got to the hospital. How the pre-med student would find everything so fascinating here. How good a doctor he’d be someday. How kind he’d been today.  How much Sam wished he was here.  _

_ Still, there were definitely things going on here that Sam wouldn’t want Brady to see. First was the ill-fitting hospital gown that flattered no one. Then, there was the fact that they left his urine sample laying on the counter for far too long. There was the embarrassing confessions about why he was here and what he was feeling (although Brady had heard them before with the RA and the RD and the cops, it didn’t stop it from being humiliating). _

_ He got to his room after three in the morning due to a wait list of people to be moved into the full wing. They had the space to move him right away, just not the people. It was freezing cold in his room and Sam had never been so dead tired before. His eyes and soul alike were weary.  _

_ Still, he heard the nurses whisper all night long. He could feel their presence every time they did their rounds. And his roommate snored, making him miss his own dorm room and Brady’s soft breathing even more.  _

_ He didn’t cry himself to sleep because there were no tears left. Instead, he drifted off silently into an anxious sleep, only hoping that tomorrow would be better _

 

Deep asleep in the passenger seat of the Impala, Sam Winchester couldn’t hear the words his brother whispered caringly into the night. 

“’Night, Sammy.”


End file.
